An Inquiry into the Military History of Religion (with some Fiction…)

And Yet AD&D isn’t a Great Choice Either?

If you had a choice, Original Dungeons & Dragons (plus or minus the supplement) or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which would you play?

In recent posts we’ve discuss the merits and flaws of Original D&D [Here’s Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 ].

After reading through OD&D and its supplements, I surmised: Since so many of the rules make the game like AD&D, why don’t I just run that?

Well, there’s a lot of reasons, mainly because of how the rules are organized.

Now here’s my caveat before I continue:Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a decent system. It’s how I got into the hobby. I can run it, and I have run it, and I understand it (1 minute combat rounds, segments, and all). This post isn’t intended to bash the system.

If I run the game with like-minded players, I have no doubt in my mind the game would run fairly smoothly.

The downside comes with trying to attract players who are more familiar with later editions of the game (which are pretty much most of my friends and acquaintances).

Such a player opening AD&D Players Handbook might rise a brow and say: “Hey? Where’s the rules for combat? What about saving throws?”

(Or ask the dreaded question: “Can my character have psionics?”)

A few years ago, when I ran AD&D for a group of these newer players, one player (a great gamer in her own right), lamented: “I have no idea what’s going on with these rules!”

Players these days want something tangible to study. Having most of the important rules in a Dungeon Master’s Guide won’t work, at least, not well. I remember one session when multiple characters had to level up and there was only one AD&D DMG available for players to adjust their combat statics (this was before the official pdfs were available, and I didn’t allow players use computers at the tabletop, still don’t).

8 thoughts on “And Yet AD&D isn’t a Great Choice Either?”

One problem that happens when players study the rules too hard is that they try to create situations where they min max and try to stack bonuses. This makes it more of a math exercise than a game and I think it detracts.

Given the two systems as I understand them I’d run AD&D. It’s got more variety in classes, races, etc right from the start without looking at extra books/supplements past the 3 core books.
In my own campaign, I had my own revisions of some tables (saving throws for example) and a few house rules to run things a little more smoothly – but my group had a lot of fun.
We play d20 3.5 (and Pathfinder) now, but I’ve been trying to bring the play style BACK to AD&D in some ways by trying not to focus so much on the “combat & movement” rules. I want my player’s to tell me what they want to do and let me interpret how it happens using d20 like we did under AD&D.
I’m inclined to believe that the more rules we have available (as Players & DM’s) only makes the game slower, more complicated, and often – less fun.

I’ve had a similar problem when trying to introduce players to AD&D 2nd Edition (although 1e is still fairly tempting – maybe when I get copies of the core books…). With B/X, it’s simple enough to just throw them into the thick of it, but with any non-Basic system, it can be a little tricky for people who’ve never played a tabletop RPG before.

One thing I really like about 2e is the freely available Fast Play Games that use an extremely stripped-down system with pregens; I’ve used several of these to great effect. I took inspiration from that approach when I sat down to make some 2e pregens, only including information that the player would need to know right away; saving throws, encumbrance and the like are easy enough for the DM to look up in the event that one is needed. It would probably be pretty easy to do something similar for 1e, if I had some friends who were up for it – although if I can find a like-minded bunch of masochists, we’ll probably be giving HackMaster 4th Edition a try instead.

Back in the day I ran a 1e/2e hybrid. I used the 2e PHB, and the 1e DMG–mainly because I didn’t like the 2e DMG all that well. And I did like those Fast Play scenarios, they had a lot great advice for starting DMs.

Iron Falcon is a terrific re-edit of the 3LBB + Supplement 1 Greyhawk which is very much like an AD&D Lite. The pdf is free, I bought the hardcover and am very tempted to switch my moldvay-cook-marsh B/X D&D over to it in my campaign. Very tempted.